Mass Effect: Out of Balance
by Drgyen
Summary: In 1942, Earth was invaded by the Race. In 2049, second contact is established with the Citadel. Authored by Lavanya Six and published on Alternate History Dot Com.


**Author: **Originally posted in Alternate History . com and all work credit to Lavanya Six.

**Codex: The Tau Ceti Crisis **

Following first contact with the Soviet FTL ship _Kaluga_ by a Salarian merchant vessel in 2049 CE, the Citadel was faced with its greatest crisis since the early days of the Geth War. Galactic society was astounded by the twin discoveries of a non-Mass Effect driven form of FTL and a slower-than-light interstellar empire whose history stretched back to before the disappearance of the Protheans.

The Tau Cetians, who refer to themselves as simply 'The Race,' are native to that eponymous system. Conservative to a fault, their rigid society and glacial pace of technological progress has left them comparatively primitive to the rest of the galaxy despite having a fifty thousand year head start. Despite these limitations, the Tau Cetians had managed to conquer two pre-spaceflight species through the use of sleeper ship armadas, and have maintained that interstellar empire using only radio communication.

It was only in 1942 CE, with the attempted conquest of Earth, that the Tau Cetian Empire failed to absorb a third species into its sphere of influence. While the Tau Cetians would conquer a substantial portion of the Earth, humans, that world's native sapient species, resisted the planetary invasion through a mix of innovative tactics, rapid technological development, and sheer numbers. The war ended in a draw, with a tense peace settling over the Tau Cetian forces and the surviving nation-states of Earth.

In the 2030s, one nation-state of Earth, the United States of America, developed a novel if underwhelming form of FTL based on superstring theory. This technology was shared with its allies in an effort to combat Tau Cetian influence. Following the _Kaluga_ Incident and the introduction of the Earth-Tau Cetian cold war to the galactic stage, several issues came to the attention of the Citadel Council. Most prominent was the violation of Tier IV of the Citadel Conventions by the Tau Cetians in the terraformation efforts of their colonial holdings. The ecological damage done to the Earth, as well as the empire's two other holdings, was both extensive and deliberate.

While the nation-states of Earth argued that the complete dismantling of the Tau Cetian empire was a moral necessity given its history of wanton conquest, the Council disagreed. The colonial possession on Epsilon Eridani II and Epsilon Indi I had been completely integrated into the empire's society for thousands of years. Instead, Citadel forces took possession of the two star systems, patrolling them in an effort to protect the defenseless worlds from slavers and pirates, but left the colonial governments intact. The Tau Cetian homeworld was likewise placed under Citadel military protection and, under threat of orbital bombardment, reparations were extracted for the ecological damage to Earth's biosphere, along with a promise from the Tau Cetian Emperor to order the decolonization of Earth. The orderly relocation of Earth-based Tau Cetians is still on-going. The Council Decolonization Enforcement Agency (CDEA) expects this effort to be completed no later than 2080 CE.

To this day, Earth is a mix of xenophobic and politically fractions nation-states. The continuing technological and military development of humanity is considered by many observers to become the most pressing challenge to galactic peace over the next century.

**Codex: The Council Decolonization Enforcement Agency (CDEA)**

Founded in 2052 CE following the signing of the Citadel-Home Accords, the Council Decolonization Enforcement Agency (CDEA) is tasked by the Council to oversee the evacuation of Tau Cetians from Earth and to handle the transition of sovereignty in colonial zones from the Tau Ceti Empire to indigenous human populations.

With the decolonization efforts closely monitored by non-governmental sapient rights organizations, the evacuation of Earth-based Tau Cetians has been a low-key affair. So far the lack of unrest in Tau Cetian society during the evacuation has surprised even Turian observers, inviting praise from the Hierarchy regarding the social cohesiveness of Tau Cetian society. While violence or social resistance is practically unknown, substance abuse remains a major issue in Tau Cetian society, particularly with new Ezo-laced drugs such as Red Ginger entering Earth's marketplaces. It is estimated that 2% of the Tau Ceti population has elected to stay behind on Earth, either in newly decolonized zones or in Tau Ceti friendly nation-states such as the United States of America.

However, the CEDA does not lack for criticism. With the Tau Cetians controlling large portions of the Earth for over a century, generations of humans have lived and died without experiencing self-rule. While certain ethnic groups have led resistance movements to the ruling Tau Certian class even before the _Kaluga_ Incident, they are the exception. Outside of the newly founded Human Republic of China and Mesopotamia Federation, vast portions of newly decolonized zones have depended on CDEA officials to organize governments and other key social institutions.

The established human-led power blocs of Earth, such as the Nipponese Empire and Soviet Union, have accused the CEDA - and by extension, the Citadel Council - of establishing a puppet world government through mega-states such as Nova Columbia and the African Union. Some humans in the decolonized zones have denounced the CEDA as simply exchanging one alien master for another, and of the Northern Hemisphere nation-states of wanting to regain their colonial holdings that were lost in the 1942 CE invasion.

The Council Decolonization Enforcement Agency is expected to complete the decolonization of Earth by 2080 CE. However, for the safety of Earth, the Charon Mass Relay will remain under indefinite guard by the CDEA until humanity reaches military self-sufficiency.

**Codex: The Illusive Man**

In 2057 CE, following the handover of sovereignty to the newly established Human Republic of China (HRC), Liu Mai, a third-generation resistance fighter and prominent leader, was chosen as the HRC's first President. While her office was a ceremonial one, it afforded her top-billing at the official handover in Shanghai.

Rather than speak as expected on the significance of her country's independence, Liu Mai instead launched into a blistering ten minute speech that stunned Citadel observers, Tau Ceitans officials, and the human media alike. Initially speaking of her mother Liu Mei's origin as a child conceived in a Tau Cetian forced breeding medical facility, Liu Mai used the lifelong difficulty her mother had forming normal human expressions after being raised early on by a Tau Ceitan researcher as a springboard to berate her fellow humans for allowing the Tau Cetian to 'colonize their hearts and minds'.

Liu Mai argued that every aspect of the human civilization had been infiltrated by alien influences, from the adaptation of non-native technology at the end of the 1942 invasion to the worldwide use of 'emphatic coughs' in everyday conversation. Liu Mai declared that Citadel culture, typified by Element Zero technology and biotics, would now damage Earth's social fabric just as much, if not moreso. She concluded her speech with speaking of the tragic implausibility of humanity ever returning to a 'pure' state, that such a genuine human being would be illusive as no one would know what he or she would act like.

This speech, dubbed the Illusive Man Speech, sparked a fresh wave of xenophobia across the Earth, resulting in several independently arising efforts to eliminate alien influence on human society. Laws were passed that limited the amount of alien media data allowed to be transmitted to Earth's extranet, and an ultimately unsuccessful joint British-Nazi campaign was launched to eliminate Tau Cetian body language from everyday human life.

In human political parlance, an 'illusive man' has become a codeword bound up with notions of xenophobia and isolationism. Moderates argue that Earth must first reestablish its own native cultures before it can properly deal with the Citadel, while extremists have companioned the notion of cutting off all contact with the outside galaxy and purging Earth of all alien influences.

The debate which Liu Mai's inflammatory speech ignited continues to this day, speaking of growing human uneasiness with alien civilizations. No longer able to rely on the supremacist notion of technological inventiveness marking humanity as a superior species, the people of Earth continue to search for their place in a vastly wider universe.

**Codex: Eden Prime**

A lush garden world awarded by the Citadel to the Anglo-Nazi Alliance for the purposes of colonization. Eden Prime was named in honor of the biblical Garden of Eden, as well as for Anthony Eden, a politician who helped foster British-Nazi cooperation during and after the 1942 invasion. Immigration is restricted to humans of specific ethnic backgrounds.

**Codex: The Tau Cetians**

Following the signing of the Citadel-Home Accords, historians and sociologists from across the galaxy converged on the Tau Ceti Empire to study how it had maintained its astonishing longevity. The sheer scale of data from Tau Ceti's seventy-five thousand year plus history has proven almost exhausting to researchers but has yielded several intriguing finds that impact galactic history.

One discovery was that the Tau Ceti Empire had uncovered a dormant Mass Relay in the Epsilon Indi system shortly after its conquest. After twelve hundred years of careful research, however, Tau Ceti scientists recommended to their Emperor that the extraterrestrial artifact was an impenetrable Outside Context Problem. Further investigation of it, they warned, could result in attracting the attention of an unknown alien intelligence. The Tau Ceti Empire orchestrated the systematic elimination of any reference to Mass Relay in their society, then abandoned it in place at the edge of the Epsilon Indi system.

A second discovery dates back to the Late Prothean Era, over fifty thousand years ago, when the 3rd Emperor Kartov reported in his personal diary of an unusual sight in the daytime sky, a dark blot of some unknown flying beast whose tentacle-like appendages crackled with lightning. Three days later, before an investigation of the object by royal astronomers could be completed, the object disappeared. Some Hanar scholars believe this description is of a Prothean vessel.

The sudden absorption of 'Tosevite-Race' colonist has put a huge strain on the carefully planned society of the Tau Cetians. This, combined with the inherent conservatism of their species, has all but frozen diplomatic negotiations with the Empire as the Tau Cetians carefully study and consider the consequences of further dealings with the outside galaxy. The Emperor plans to announce the result of the current Empire-wide policy review upon its prompt completion in 2075 CE.


End file.
